The construction of the new Lyulin Highway to belt Sofia city is likely to be completed earlier than it was planned, Bulgaria's Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev said during a tour along the facility on Sunday.

"If the building works follow the same rhythm, the highway will be ready in the mid-summer of 2009," the premier foresaw.

During the inspection, PM Stanishev was accompanied by the Regional Development Minister Assen Gagauzov.

The official start of the project was given by Stanishev himself, who turned the first sod in January last year.

About EUR 148 M will be invested in the construction of Lyulin Highway. Bulgarian government will finance 25% of the project and the remaining 75% will be funded under the ISPA program of the EU.

The highway, which will be a part of Trans-European transport corridors 4 and 8, will be 20 kilometers in total. It will have two lanes in each direction with a maximum possible velocity of 100-110 km/h.

The facility will have a complex structure supplied with 26 bridges and viaducts, three road junctions and three tunnels.

The highway will ease the extremely heavy traffic on the route Sofia-Thessaloniki. Part of it, closer to the Greek border, is also Struma highway whose newest 39-km stretch, linking Dupnitza and Daskalovo.

The strategy for development and modernization of the country's infrastructure has been pinned high on the government's agenda, particularly after it joined the EU.

Bulgaria plans to construct 717,14 km of highways by 2015.